Study shows persistent shortages in health specialties

WALTHAM — The Massachusetts Medical Society released its annual study of the state's physician workforce recently, showing shortages in several specialties and continuing difficulty in recruitment and retention of physicians. The study showed some positive trends: more physicians say they are familiar with payment refor...

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Posted Oct. 19, 2012 at 1:12 PM

Posted Oct. 19, 2012 at 1:12 PM

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WALTHAM — The Massachusetts Medical Society released its annual study of the state's physician workforce recently, showing shortages in several specialties and continuing difficulty in recruitment and retention of physicians. The study showed some positive trends: more physicians say they are familiar with payment reform initiatives such as accountable care organizations and global payments and more indicated a willingness to participate in one or both of these new models of care.

Practicing physicians, department chiefs of teaching hospitals, and medical staff presidents of community hospitals were surveyed.

Richard Aghababian, M.D., president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, cautioned that physicians face new challenges ahead. "The payment reform bill signed in August has many provisions pertaining to physicians and the practice of medicine. While we are heartened by the law's provisions for medical liability reforms and preventive care, just how the law will affect our physician workforce and to what degree is unknown at this time."

Analysis found seven of 18 specialties, to be in critical or severe shortages: family medicine, internal medicine, general surgery, neurosurgery, dermatology, psychiatry, and urology. Four specialties — internal medicine, psychiatry, urology, and neurosurgery — met "critical" shortage criteria. Three were classified as "severe" — family medicine, dermatology, and general surgery.

More than 94% of community hospitals report significant difficulty in filling vacancies (compared to 7.3% of teaching hospitals and 22% of practicing physicians) and 87% report increased recruiting time (compared to 30% of teaching hospitals and 39% of practicing physicians).

Locally, just over 62 percent of doctors surveyed in the New Bedford and Barnstable areas reported an inadequate pool of physicians to recruit from, according to a Standard-Times report. About 25.9 percent reported a "significant difficulty" filling vacancies.

Both measures are much higher than in Boston — where just under 44 percent said the physician pool was inadequate and 17.4 percent had major difficulty filling vacancies — but much lower than in Pittsfield/Western Massachusetts where 85 percent said the pool of applying physicians was inadequate and 47.8 percent said it was very difficult to fill vacancies.

Nevertheless, local medical systems, Southcoast Hospitals Group and Hawthorn Medical Associates, have had success recruiting physicians. Hawthorn has increased its doctors from 34 to more than 80 since 2004 and Southcoast brought 60-70 more on board in the last year alone, according to the Standard-Times report.